Halcyon Aliens Dropship plus APC diorama WIP

[Guest]

wow you have one almighty job there,and you are doing great

mobear

[Guest]

Well that fortuitous discovery this afternoon changed my plans for the building today - with so much lovely resin and etch details I couldn't resist having a go at the cockpit! The two bang seats are marvels of tiny cast detail. How I'm going to paint them I'll never know - I think I might need a more powerful magnifying lens in my visor!

I had to move the front seat back quite a distance to fit a pilot in along with the console. There is an instrument console to the pilots left which is built up from scaps of plastic card and etch and the rear seat's console is built up on another couple of plastic scraps with etch details stuck on. The figures had to loose their feet and the pilot had to have his lower legs amputated to fit under the console but this won't be visible. In fact truth be told most of this won't be visible, but I'll know its there

A couple of etch pieces have been attached to the sidewalls of the cockpit body itslef. It all fits together into a very cramped cockpit

But that seems appropriate from what you see in the movie. So now to add some paint to this lot! I must admit this was huge fun - building something that only had to conform to a vague layout snatched from very brief glimpses allowed space for creativity and just fun!

[Guest]

whoa nice cockpit mate

mobear

[Guest]

Bit of painting tonight, that cockpit needed finishing off...

and this is why I don't do 1:72 anymore - this looked okay with eyes and magnifier, but zooming in with the camera and it doesn't look half as good

Pilots getting some paint too

and you can see the ejecrot seat handles in yellow as well. There was another but it just disappeared somewhere! If it more than 5mm wide I'll be surprised.

Finally in this update, the canopy. If you look closely in the last pic on the previous post you'll see the canopy. It has some scratches on the surface meant to denote the canopy frame.Well I don't think thats good enough so having masked it all up, I'm layering some Mr surfacer 1000 to represent the canopy frame.

Dunno if it'll work but I'll never know unless I try! Oh and I almost forgot, the APC bay got its Olive Green paint and some dark wash.

I am trying to sort out the headlights as well, but I keep getting distracted with the cockpit. Missiles soon... oh boy!

"Hot as hell in here"

"Yeah man, but it's a dry heat!"

[Guest]

All looking good so far mate, the bay looks well tidy

As far as you thinking the cockpit isn't up to scratch ....... "Drake, check your camera. There seems to be a malfunction"........ looks ok from this end and it'll look fine when it's in situ and you've got that canopy sorted.

[Guest]

This is just brilliant! So much skill involved, I'll never complain about a Tamiya / Dragon / Italeri kit again ...well maybe Italeri

Loving the progress on this, looking forward to more.

" What the hell are we supposed to use man? Harsh language? "

[Guest]

Of course now I've just relaised that the back of the APC bay is too dark! You can see in this screencap that its a sort of grey colour

Now whether that is just the lighting form inside the bay (which I don't have) or whether its the real colour of that "face" bit in the wall I don't know. All I know is that mine will look too dark, so might have to change that to make it look similar...

[Guest]

its getting better and better cool

mobear

[aaron]

What a shame because that bay in olive green and its wash look elite.

[Guest]

I think it's the tube lighting each side of the bay thats giving it the lighter grey look in the still Andrew, if you're not going to push further and go for some form of interior lighting then maybe re-painting it will be the best option.

shame to have to redo it but it'll be the best thing as it'll probably bug you if it's not right eh

[Guest]

Looking through later in the movie there is a scene towards the end where Ripley is tooling up to go rescue Newt which takes place inside the APC bay of the second dropship. It definitely shows green walls so it must be the lighting in that previous screencap, so I'll leave it as it. There are some interesting shots there that give more detail, but I'm not sure I'm going to do anymore detailing in there. It did remind me about the ladder as well however. That will be retraceted in my diorama as the APC will have just been deployed.

Lots of small bit done last night: painting the pilots faces and helmets, fixing the silver reflectors to the headlights, preparing the missiles for painting, lining the inside of the forward missile pods with textured plastic card to give it more texture, another coat of mr surfacer on the canopy, fixing the headlights into the forward body, drilling a hole through the angled joint of the missile pod to add a short bit of brass tube to give the joint strength. This tube has been cut to size and epoxied into position. Once its set I can use that to align a second hole and rod to secure the leg properly. Then it will be the same on the other leg.

No photos this time, just some writing... hope I haven't bored you

[Guest]

...and we're back!

After a couple days break things are starting to happen again. First off, the missiles (except the ones that will be in the wing pods) have been primed

Now one of the problems that is often reported about this model is the joint between the missile pods and the main body, or rather the LACK of a joint. Out of the box its expected to just attach the pod to the side of the body with just a plain flat plate. This is of course inherently weak as the forces on it just from gravity will break the joint. To avoid this problem I have come up with a solution:

3mm holes drilled into the face of the missile pod arm that joins the body and into the body itself. Then insert a short bit of 3mm brass tube and araldite it in place. The Milliput on the inner surface gives the joint a better anchor for the rods to journal into. I'm not sure if I might leave the pods detachable whenit complete for ease of transport. I think this might just have to wait to experiment once everything has set and solidified completely.

Also, headlights done with silver foil:

Pilots got a black wash which has made them go all shiny!

and the canopy is slowly being built up layer upon layer. I hope this works because if it doesn't I am well and truly screwed

I've got a couple of days off next week so I am hoping to make some progress this weekend, so watch this space!

"Somebody said 'alien' she thought they said 'illegal alien' and signed up" "F*** you, man! " "Anytime, anywhere!"

[aaron]

Hi Andrew, This is coming along nicely i like how you resolved the pod issue.

Good luck with the canopy.

[Guest]

i will borrow that idea for the pods when i come to do mine if ya dont mind,looking good so far.

[Guest]

If you do use the idea, just be careful and line the rods up properly- mine ended up a bit crooked and that means gettign them in and out of the holes is a bit tricky!

Well today is a bit of an "oh bugger"!

Last night after I realised just how shiny the pilots were, I looked out the Tamiya flat base jar and put it aside tor today to mix with a little Klear to make a decent flat coat. First hing this morning, while not fully awake I decided to go ahead and give the pilots their flat coat, but instead of mixing with Klear I gave them a coat of flat base! The result:

which is AFTER they've been cleaned up somewhat! Arse!

Going to need to think about this one!

In other news, work has begin on the forward pylons. These have inside faces that are hollow and very boring, so lets fill them up a bit and give them some interesting texture...

Okay so it doesn't come out in the photo very well but I've added strips of Evergreen "Metal Siding" sheet to give it a ribbed appearance. I'm also replacing the very plain and boring strut that provides the mount for the missiles (the green oblongs at the back right in the photo) with scratch built ones from the same "Metal siding" plastic.

Thats all for today, more tomorrow when I might be able to sort out the pilot disaster!

That's great, this is really great, man. Now, what the f*** are we supposed to do? We're in some pretty shit now, man!